Inheritance
by TrailingJasmine
Summary: It flows in Lavender's very veins, it seeks to control and to sway, and eventually it overwhelms her.


**Disclaimer: **Lavender belongs to JKR, but the situation is entirely mine  
**Rating: **R (suicide, substance abuse, serious angst)  
**Word Count: **1005  
**Characters/Pairings: **Lavender; hints at past Lavender/Ron  
**Summary: **It flows in your very veins; it seeks to control and to sway; and eventually it overwhelms us all.

**Author's Notes: **after TeddyLupin! fic comes LavenderBrown! fic. I have a soft spot for Lav-Lav, I must admit. Anyway, this all stems from my journey north to Scotland this year. We drove past a house I've seen every year; it's more of a castle than a house, in a valley on our way north. I mentioned how nice it was; my mother said, 'Oh, I knew the boys who lived there. They were mad as anything. Their mother threw herself off the battlements." And from this comes bleak Lavender: the girl who seemed normal enough but had many, many problems at home; and then was bitten by Greyback and just slowly slipped away. Do enjoy... somehow!

* * *

The rabbit hops amongst the jumble of books and clothes and empty firewhisky bottles. You lie on your bed, smoking and watching. Somehow you've never grown attached to Binky's replacement, and this summer, with Greyback's blood pulsing in your heart, you think it's just as well.

---

There used to be days when you thought you could escape from the doom flowing in your very veins. Daddy was an alcoholic. Your grandmother died an early death with a bottle of Gillywater in hand. Your uncle blew his brains out with his wand when you were six.

You suspect your heritage is cursed, but Greyback's bite is like confirmation. It takes the events of the hot July afternoon six weeks later to place the seal on it. Mama is on the battlements, washing her hands in a bucket like Lady Macbeth. She's been there every afternoon for three days, but this time it seems more urgent, more real. You can only watch as her body falls to the earth below.

Half an hour later, as you sit holding her body below the fifty foot drop, the ambulance sirens are in another world.

---

You're drunk at the funeral, but no one seems to care. The gin has numbed you like it has every night for the last ten days, and all you can think of is that once they've all gone, you can return to your room and the squat crystal bottles and start to mourn properly. Full moon in five days time will be a release.

The house is empty by half past six. Nobody wants to stay to see the latest phase of the disintegration of a family. It feels so inevitable, so predictable. Earlier, your sister was sitting talking to one of the many aunts who seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and she threw a glance at you across the living room. You did nothing then, just poured another whisky and soda, and prayed it would all be over soon.

---

It's not that you don't care. You do care; in fact, you care desperately. But the last few years have been nothing but pain and turmoil, disappearances and deaths and Mama drugged and Daddy drunk, and frankly part half of the equation has been balanced, at least for now.

You go up on the battlements the night after Mama's funeral. A gibbous moon hangs over the house, and you catch your breath when you see a figure in white standing in the last place you saw Mama alive. You steal closer, hoping, praying the last few days have been just a dream. But then the figure turns and you see Emily standing there in her nightgown, pale and tearful. "She's not coming back," she cries, and what can you do but take her in your arms and tell her it will all be fine?

---

Full moon comes and goes. You run wild in the hills, and when dawn comes you are naked on a lake shore. You thought you wouldn't bite anything, but there's blood all over your body and all you can think about is the essay you wrote on werewolves in third year.

You hope it wasn't a human.

---

Daddy hasn't been sober for a month now.

He always drank heavily but now it seems he doesn't break between bottles. He just keeps on going, and it's only a matter of time until another funeral.

But it's not the funeral you expect.

---

Two days before Emily leaves for her first day at Hogwarts, it finally happens. You're reading Houellebecq in an empty bathtub, cigarette in hand, when you hear the scream from below. When you finally get downstairs Emily is prostrate in the hallway next to a body which is probably your father's.

You do what was drilled into you from the age of three, and dial for an ambulance for the second time in six weeks.

The paramedics seem resigned, almost. Daddy isn't dead, but he might as well be. Propped up in the hospital bed with grey skin and bloodshot eyes, he's already half a corpse.

---

Emily has been quiet for days. Your father is too far gone to drive, so you take her down to King's Cross by train. Emily gets up at one point, muttering something about the bathroom. The train stops at York while she's gone; and as it starts to slide out of the station, there comes a short, sharp jarring. You know what it is before the screaming starts.

---

You go on to London anyway, to Diagon Alley, where you feel like a leper with a bell. The scars across your face mark you out; someone who participated in the Second War, and emerged with their soul less than intact.

And then you see that familiar flash of red hair and your heart sinks. You duck into Madam Malkins, and pretend to care about dress robes whilst looking out of the window. And there he is, arm in arm with Hermione Granger. They're engaged; you saw the announcement in the Daily Prophet. But what do marriage announcements matter when you're trying to keep your family from appearing too frequently in the deaths column?

You snort amidst the lacy collars and trims. It's too late now. What will the Brown name mean but madness and ruin?

---

When you arrive home, and Flopsy is still snuffling around, you can't take it. A swift crack of the neck and it's over, the blood sweet in your mouth.

How did it ever come to this?

---

The doorbell rings two days later; you're lying in the hall, drunk. You hear a voice, faint on the other side of the door. "Lavender? It's Parvati and Padma. Are you there?" You stay silent, listening. "Lavender! It's been months! We heard about your sister, about your mother..."

You remember how they stayed away from you after they heard you had been bitten, how they never wrote, never spoke to you.

So you lie there, and wonder whether you'll ever feel normal again. And underneath it all, you know that really, you never want to feel normal again.


End file.
